Recently, computing systems have increased in computational power to permit the development of processing systems to generate, manipulate and utilize electronic mesh-based models for physical objects having sufficient spatial resolution to permit the replacement of physical models in many applications. The dental industry has for a long time utilized physical models to observe the interaction of patient's teeth with opposing teeth as well as the introduction of dental appliances such as crowns, bridges and implants (CBI) into a patient's mouth. These models are utilized to select, size and orient the CBI devices before the devices are placed into a patient's mouth. This use of physical models is expensive as it requires the creation of multiple models as a patient's treatment plan progresses. In addition, these physical models must be stored for later retrieval.
Computer based systems that allow the creation and use of electronic models of these impressions of teeth have been developed over time. Examples of such systems are described in U.S. Provisional Patent Application entitled, “METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR COMPUTER GENERATION OF ELECTRONIC MODEL IMAGES”, Ser. No. 60/351,270 filed Jan. 22, 2002, now U.S. patent application entitled, “METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR COMPUTER GENERATION OF ELECTRONIC MODEL IMAGES”, Ser. No. 10/350,302, filed Jan. 22, 2003; and U.S. Provisional Patent Application entitled, “METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR AUTOMATICALLY DETERMINING THE LOCATION OF INDIVIDUAL TEETH WITHIN ELECTRONIC MODEL IMAGES”, Ser. No. 60/351,271, filed Jan. 22, 2002, now U.S. patent application entitled, “METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR AUTOMATICALLY DETERMINING THE LOCATION OF INDIVIDUAL TEETH WITHIN ELECTRONIC MODEL IMAGES”, Ser. No. 10/350,304, filed Jan. 22, 2003. These applications are commonly assigned with the instant application and are incorporated by reference herein. These prior systems generated the electronic models and systems used to permit dentists to use the models in place of the physical models. The prior systems permit the manipulation of teeth within the model are part of designing a treatment plan for a patient.
These earlier systems, however, do not utilize dental CBI appliances in the electronic model processing. If an electronic model for such a CBI appliance is constructed electronically to fit a prep site found in an electronic model for a patient, a custom CBI appliance may be constructed that more accurately matches the patient's mouth. The entire manipulation of the CBI appliance may be performed electronically to obtain a more optimum dental solution for a patient with a resulting CBI appliance device created using a standard lost-wax manufacturing process based upon an electronic model generated for the CBI appliance. The present invention addresses the above limitations of prior dental electronic modeling systems.